Ugh, Our Thought Police Are, Like, The Lamest EVER!

In the ten years since MINORITY REPORT was released, the FBI has come up with … Twitter.

Telegraph:

FBI To Use Twitter To Predict Crimes, Bieber’s Next Girlfriend

“Although the police, including in Britain, already use Facebook routinely to ascertain the whereabouts of criminals, automatically filtering out irrelevant information remains challenging. The new FBI application will be able to automatically highlight the most relevant information.”

Mmhmm. Next, the FBI plans to get out of the crime-fighting business after selling this magic dream software to marketers for zillions.

Talk about #FollowFriday! (Sorry)

thot pictures

Copyright troll Righthaven’s domain name now up for auction

Fire-sale dept:

Current highest bid = $1,250. 9 days left. Time to crack open your piggy bank if you want to own RightHaven.com and, uh, start the re-branding process?

From ARS Technica -

Righthaven’s domain name went up for auction on Monday in order to satisfy court judgements against the copyright trolling firm.

Fark settles with patent troll for $0

via BoingBoing -

Drew Sez:

The patent troll realized we were going to fight them instead of settle, so they asked for our best offer. I said how about you get nothing and drop the lawsuit? They accepted.

The patent covered a method for inputting news releases into a web form, which would then compile the news release and email it to media outlets. Now, aside from the fact that a ton of prior art exists and that the patent should never have been awarded in the first place, Fark and all the other websites named in the lawsuit don’t produce “news releases”. In the world of journalism, the term “news release” is equivalent to “press release” - the patent itself equates the two in the opening description. Could a judge have ruled otherwise? Sure. They’ve been known to rule that the sky is green - which is why this lawsuit was dangerous.

Read the whole post…

SWEEPING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY REFORMS TO BOOST GROWTH AND ADD BILLIONS TO THE ECONOMY

The Government today announced plans to support economic growth by modernising UK intellectual property laws. Ministers have accepted the recommendations made in an independent review which estimate a potential benefit to the UK economy of up to £7.9 billion.

Among the recommendations [from the Hargreaves Report] that have been accepted are:

• The UK should have a Digital Copyright Exchange; a digital market place where licences in copyright content can be readily bought and sold. The review predicted that a Digital Copyright Exchange could add up as much as £2 billion a year to the UK economy by 2020. A feasibility study will now begin to establish how such an exchange will look and work. The Government will announce arrangements for how this work will be driven forward later in the year.
• Copyright exceptions covering limited private copying should be introduced to realise growth opportunities. Thousands of people copy legitimately purchased content, such as a CD to a computer or portable device such as an IPod, assuming it is legal. This move will bring copyright law into line with the real world, and with consumers’ reasonable expectations.
• Copyright exceptions to allow parody should also be introduced to benefit UK production companies and make it legal for performing artists, such as comedians, to parody someone else’s work without seeking permission from the copyright holder. It would enable UK production companies to create programmes that could play to their creative strengths, and create a range of content for broadcasters.
• The introduction of an exception to copyright for search and analysis techniques known as ‘text and data mining’. Currently research scientists such as medical researchers are being hampered from working on data because it is illegal under copyright law to do this without permission of copyright owners. The Wellcome Trust has said that 87 per cent of the material housed in the UK’s main medical research database is unavailable for legal text and data mining, that is despite the fact that the technology exists to carry out this analytical work.
• Establishing licensing and clearance procedures for orphan works (material with unknown copyright owners). This would open up a range of works that are currently locked away in libraries and museums and unavailable for consumer or research purposes.
• That evidence should drive future policy – The Government has strengthened the Intellectual Property Office’s economics team and has begun a programme of research to highlight growth opportunities. One report has already shown that investments made by businesses in products and services that are protected by intellectual property rights (IPRs) are worth £65 billion a year.

“Family Movie Night Enforcement” Law Passed In Tennessee

“Guess who got their mom’s paaaassswoooordd??”

The Tennessean -

While those who share their subscriptions with a spouse or other family members under the same roof almost certainly have nothing to fear, blatant offenders — say, college students who give their logins to everyone on their dormitory floor — could get in trouble.

This is not anti-family legislation. Land owners and their families will enjoy full immunity….until a family member leaves home for college. 

Besides, as we all know, copyright trolling is an exact science.

The bill expands an existing law used to prosecute people who steal cable television or leave restaurants without paying for their meals. It adds “entertainment subscription service” to the list of services protected by the law.

But, but - these people are paying! They’ve subscribed to your service, these are your customers. In fact, it’s likely that they really like your service so much that they can no longer be bothered to pirate movies!

Let’s finish up by letting Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam sooth both our civil and consumer anxieties as he explains the new law:

Haslam said earlier that he wasn’t familiar with the details of the legislation, but given the recording industry presence, he favors “anything we can do to cut back” on music piracy.

“I don’t know enough about that legislation, but if it’s combating that issue, I would be in favor of it,” Haslam said.

Yep Governor, it’s combating an issue. Or is an issue. Or it’s rhetoricizing a platitude. Yes, we could all do without this pork and, really, “‘cut back’ on music piracy.”

Read the article….